Mind and Manners
by Osmodion
Summary: A story where Voldemort, now Tom Riddle Jr., is set in Harry's generation in all his angsty, tortured glory, and Harry grew up with a normal, non-magical family. Hermione is featured as love interest to both and acts as a foil to Harry and Tom's relationship. Gets a little upsetting at times. [Desperately needs a beta because I don't have time to fix flow] f/m, m/m, platonic stuff
1. Chapter 1

He had been a permanent fixture in this reedy, old, cheap apartment for many weeks now, and he had gotten use to the smallness and the dimness and the blandness of the room that had formerly bothered him much. Tom sat in his ricket chair with his back facing Harry, the furious animation of his writing belying his thin frame. Harry was not sure what no good ol'Tommy was up to now. He was weighing the consequences of meddling in his tomfoolery versus the consequences of seeing it inevitably come to some unfortunate fruition.

"Don't think about it," Tom muttered distractedly between scribbles, "or else I'll hurt you. I can hear your slow unnecessary thinking from here, and it is bothering me."

At this, Harry shuffled away as noisily as his incorporeal body would allow. He was mildly annoyed by Tom's rudeness but he had long since gotten used to his anti-social personality so he acted much more put out than he actually was.

Tom and Harry had a strange living arrangement. To begin with, neither of them had wanted to live with the other. It was merely the result of one of those magical happenstances-the ones where to what Harry called law-abiding Upright Citizens would be showered with inexplicable fortune and fame whereas to characters as Tom and himself, he mused, would be served some karmic justice. In this case, Harry had been at work one day in his shop when his "do-gooder" check ran out. It was one of those days when you you wake up with your sock on your hand and your foot in your mouth; every good mechanician knows that on those days you absolutely do not, and I repeat, do not go into the shop at risk of bodily injury and possibly death, _but_ Harry was always more of a wild spirit than a mechanician so he went into the shop and when one unfortunately hooked light bulb lit another unfortunately volatile chemical, it set off a series of reactions that crossed dimensions, broke magical and physical laws alike, and left the both of them in this very sorry state of partial co-non-existence.

You see, Harry is now a phantasm in a magical world that made very little sense, all alone with no family and no friends and no company and with no one who can acknowledge him save for the very first boy he met, a very self-absorbed, delusional, and disrespectful _little boy_ named Tom. In equivalent terms, Harry was all alone.

Harry's main purpose in life was to remind Tom how much he disliked Tom in very subtle and nefarious ways. He was aware that it was not the most flattering personal trait, and it was extremely unfair because Tom had not asked for the situation either, but to be honest Harry was bored because he had little entertainment and when one has little amusement one seeks to make amusement for themselves. He took especially vindictive pleasure in tormenting the insufferable Tom, just as Tom lived to torment others.

His other purpose in life was to keep himself alive. Without a shadow of a doubt, there was a way for Tom to get rid of him, and Harry wanted to avoid learning how complete nonexistence felt for as long as possible. Tom had already tried many times to find a way to separate them, and when Harry was naive and innocent two months ago, he even aided Tom in trying to separate them. Unfortunately, he realized quickly that Tom really had no intention of trying to keep him alive and would probably spend much effort and frustration trying to find a method of separation in which Harry died in a horrible way while Tom lives.

This train of thought soured his mood, and Harry decided that he had left Tom alone and undisturbed for long enough. He floated over to pore over his roommate's shoulder. To his surprise, Tom was signing his name off on a letter and not planning some black magic ritual or sacrifice to the unholy kings.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Tom didn't respond. Harry wasn't really expecting him to, so he decided to read the letter instead. Doubly to his surprise, Tom pushed the letter away and covered it with his hand.

"I'll be away for a couple of months," he said. "Don't bother me."

"I can't stay away from you for long," Harry argued. "If I do I'll start to disappear and who knows what'll happen to you." Harry was very curious about what type of life event could drive Tom to this type of amateur subterfuge. Harry knew Tom thought careless manipulation crass, and he knew that Tom was touchy about subjects like death, the unknown, and his own worth as a human being, which was very low. Tom had little to offer the world. He smiled at Tom.

Tom stared at him. It was the same type of stare that one dog gives to another when they try to assert dominance after sniffing each other's rear ends on a walk. Harry fancied himself the type who would be the owner of such a dog, so he wasn't very perturbed. Tom's face contorted, and he added, with emphasis, "you're bothersome and _I don't want you there_."

Harry secretly agreed, but he wasn't about to let this chance at some modicum of freedom go. He opened his mouth to protest.

Unfortunately, this proved too much for Tom to handle, so he sent a red flash of light at Harry. Harry had been the receiver of such a spell so often that he was able to recognize that the color was that of a silencing spell. Spells were hard to dodge even if Tom's anger was predictable, so he was hit by this one, which was soon followed by another redder one that Harry learned would freeze up his arms and legs and make him fall to the ground in a state of highly uncomfortable immobility. He discovered he was able to glare.

Tom stood by and looked down at him with a smile on his face. He was rather charming when he smiled, Harry noted with irritation. He blinked and sighed.

Tom bent down and, for the first time since they had met, touched Harry by pressing his finger on his forehead. Then, he murmured something too low for Harry to catch and suddenly Harry felt his vision fold up on itself. It was not such a bad way to go, he thought.

* * *

Sorry this one's short.


	2. Chapter 2

The first flutterings of consciousness came to Harry in tandem with the disturbing scratching of chalk on blackboard. To his great surprise, he realized that he was not dead but, to his great chagrin, was in fact locked in some further incomprehensible form. Now, he could not see his extremities, much less touch anything. He supposed to he could be best described as simply a Consciousness now. A Consciousness that was continuously interrupted by the scratching of something hard on some other surface it was not supposed to touch. The sound reverberated like sourceless white static in a chamber hall and it was as irritating as an itch he could not scratch. He was thankful that he was alive, of course, but he wasn't sure how long that would last.

Slowly the noise started to assimilate into recognizable chunks. It was human language, he surmised, but he could not understand it and knew not of its origin. He hoped it was not Tom because in all honesty solitude was preferable to self-harm.

What Harry did not know was that he had been transmogrified into a rather dusty old journal, due to Tom's pettiness and poverty, and that this journal had been given to an associate of his, who was currently on the other end of the line. This girl's name was Hermione Granger. She was a muggle-born, sorted into Gryffindor, who was very much fascinated by the Wizarding World and very much innocent of human ills. That Harry did not know is why he willingly entertained this voice in his head whenever it asked him questions and thought himself extremely imaginative when he discovered it belonged to a person with a background and attitude he couldn't completely understand or predict. Hermione was a smart girl and interesting conversationalist. Their conversations would usually go something like this:

"Voice, I am bored," commanded Harry.

"Oh, for the last time, I am not a voice-I am a witch. My name is Hermione Granger. When will that get into your head?" said the voice.

"I don't believe that," Harry retorted.

Harry was a rude fellow, however Hermione was a nice girl. Because she understood Harry's predicament much better than Harry did himself, she took pity on him and would tell him of her life and listen to his nonsensical complaints. It was also partially selfish scheme on Hermione's part because she didn't quite fit in with her housemates in Gryffindor House; as a result, she was always lonely and found solace in these quiet moments when she could write to a rude but non-judgemental and largely uncaring diary who could talk back. Harry was a welcome voice of muggle familiarity in the strange magic world.

Harry understood her confusion and her difficulties with fitting into the culture of the magical world. They bonded over Wizarding nonsense, expressing dismay or bewilderment at pureblood traditions and incompatible beliefs. It was refreshing to be so honest, but sometimes Harry's strange directness would scare her. Once, he laughed and told her, "the magical folk out there are crazy. Because they have grown up with magic they have never questioned its necessity or its nature. All of them, including you, are afraid of the abuse of its power, so they do not abuse it in the hopes that other people will reciprocate, when they should rather be abusing its power to protect themselves when there are people like Tom out there."

When she told him that she had already abused her limits by acquiring a Time Turner, Harry had laughed hysterically. When she told them that she didn't believe Tom could be a bad person let alone a abuser of power, he had sobered up.

He had become a trusted aide and friend. That is why when Hermione was confronted by her own strange feelings, she decided to confide in Harry.

With a determined flourish, she wrote, "Harry, I need your help."

"My imagination is at your service," he allowed.

"Harry, I-"

"Careful now," he cautioned, warily, "You're getting so emotional that I can see your face clearly through the link."

"Oh for the love of Merlin, will you take this seriously," she scribbled, almost misspelling the words in her frustration. "I'm supposed to be the one who's telling you to be careful. I'm the volatile one right now-"

"Oh so you do admit that you always get your panties in a bunch," was written over her sentence.

"I don't have time to argue with you right now. You are not the one in love with Tom Riddle. Why are you even bringing this up, I thought you would've realized from the last time-"

"What?"

 _What?_ , Hermione parroted, confused. Suddenly she caught up with her words, and she blushed. The journal was dry for several moments. Finally, as if it were unsure it etched out, "so you really aren't a part of my consciousness…"

And then a flabbergasted dark haired seventeen year old fell out of the book, head-first into her lap.

* * *

beta, anyone? I'm afraid this is gonna get really long before anyone is going to end up editing this. It's stream-of-consciousness for me cause this is the only way I'll continue writing, but my stream-of-consciousness is not editor level...


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